This invention relates generally to balloon catheters, which are known in the art, and more specifically to balloon catheters which may be provided with implements to aid in the treatment of blockages, such as stiffening members, cutting blades and the like. In some embodiments, a balloon catheter may be used to deliver an expandable medical device, such as a stent, to a treatment area.
Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is a procedure which is well established for the treatment of blockages in the coronary and peripheral arteries.
A widely used form of percutaneous angioplasty makes use of a dilatation balloon catheter. The provision of cutting blades upon the balloon facilitates the cutting and dilation of stenoses. An example of a balloon catheter with a cutting edge is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,616,149, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The use of stents in bodily lumen is also known. A stent is typically delivered in an unexpanded state to a desired location in a bodily lumen via a medical device such as a catheter. Once the stent is at the desired bodily location, it is either expanded with a balloon or other suitable device or allowed to expand by, for example, withdrawing a restraining sheath.
There remains a need for inventive catheter balloons which provide superior performance over prior art balloons, for example when treating vessel blockages and/or delivering medical devices to a treatment area.
All US patents and applications and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Without limiting the scope of the invention a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments of the invention is set forth below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.
A brief abstract of the technical disclosure in the specification is provided as well only for the purposes of complying with 37 C.F.R. 1.72. The abstract is not intended to be used for interpreting the scope of the claims.